Join us for a special evening featuring Professor Jacob Tsimerman (HBSc 2006), one of Canada's leading mathematicians and a 2026 Fields Medal recipient, recognized in part for his role in proving the André-Oort conjecture. 

In conversation with Catherine Lacavera (BASc 1997, JD/MBA 2001, Hon LLD 2017), Chief Legal Officer at Turing, Professor Tsimerman will reflect on his journey from U of T student to world-renowned mathematician. Together, they will explore the applications of mathematics and its emerging applications for AI safety.   

A networking reception will immediately follow with Chris Yip, Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and Stephen Wright, Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science.  

Jacob Tsimerman Biography

Jacob Tsimerman is a Canadian mathematician, Founding Scientific Director at the Mathematical AI Safety Institute (MAISI), and a professor in the Department of Mathematics in the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on analytic number theory and arithmetic geometry, particularly the study of integer solutions to certain types of polynomial equations.

Tsimerman is widely recognized for his contribution to proving the long-standing André-Oort conjecture in 2021, a milestone in modern mathematics that links special points with broader geometric structures, which has since unlocked new avenues of research inquiry. This included establishing key results in functional transcendence theory, most notably, the Ax-Schanuel theorem for Hodge structures. He is also recognized for resolving the Griffiths conjecture, developing an o-minimal version of the GAGA theorems. He was awarded a 2026 Fields Medal from the International Mathematical Union in recognition of these and other achievements.

Tsimerman was the Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study’s  School of Mathematics for its 2025-26 Special Year on Arithmetic Geometry, Hodge Theory, and o-minimality. He was elected a fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Canada in 2025, and was awarded the 2024 John L. Synge Award, the 2023 Ostrowski Prize, the 2022 New Horizons in Mathematics Prize, the 2019 Coxeter-James Prize and the 2015 Sastra Ramanujan Prize.

Tsimerman held a postdoctoral position at Harvard University as a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows. In July 2014, he was awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and began his term as assistant professor at the University of Toronto, where he currently holds the position of full professor.

Tsimerman won two gold medals as a high school student at the International Mathematical Olympiad, including a perfect score in 2004. He studied mathematics at the University of Toronto as an undergraduate student and received his PhD from Princeton University in 2011, under the supervision of Peter Sarnak.